Political structure Rzeczpospolita in the views of publicists the end of the XVIII century

Abstract

The article is devoted to the debate in the Polish social thought in the second half of the XVIII century around the question of the need to preserve the monarchy election. Severin Zhevussky, the most significant representative of the traditionalists who sought to preserve the foundations of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, insisted that all the troubles in Poland come from «foreign influence». His best-known opponent was Hugo Kollataj, a supporter of reform, one of the authors of the Constitution of May 3, 1791 in elective monarchy he saw a threat to the existence of an independent Commonwealth. The author notes that both parties argues linked the future of the Commonwealth with a republican form of government. The author concludes that in spite of the proclaimed in the Constitution of 1791 the principle of the transfer of the throne hereditary, elected monarchy institution during the second partition of Poland (1793) was restored.